


Epiphany

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: The Middleman (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Epiphany, Gen, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 06:13:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1053443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hey, what do I get my boss for Christmas-Epiphany-general-festival-of-expressing-love-through-capitalism-whatever?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Epiphany

**Author's Note:**

  * For [metonymy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/metonymy/gifts).



"You got me a shovel?" Lacey says, and Wendy shakes her head.

"No! No, this is… wait here." Wendy darts back to the upper part of the loft, pushes open the window and swings the shovel in a big, six-years-of-Little-League over-arm arc. There's this totally gross noise and a kind of splattering of grey stuff everywhere, and then another totally gross noise, like something approximately body-sized and body-shaped has hit the ground below with a splat. She runs her hands under the faucet then goes back down the stairs. 

"No, no," Wendy says, and Lacey gives her a sweet, uncertain smile. "I was gonna get you art supplies. And then I thought… you can make art out of anything, you don't need supplies."

This time Lacey's smile could set alight dry tinder. Wendy goes on, all in a rush, "So I got you" – she hands over the little gilt envelope – "art."

It's really a giftcard, good for two tickets to whatever the city art museum's next big show is, and actually this is what Wendy loves about Lacey, how the next exhibition could be Monet revisionism or a reappraisal of Gustav Klimt for the twenty-first century or a detailed history of the font Helvetica, or anything, and Lacey would go see it, not without criticism, maybe not without words like "oppressive" and "bourgeois" and "kind of shitty, actually" but with her mind open, with a readiness to be awed. 

"Wendy…" Lacey looks at her, head inclined and eyes soft. "You're the best. Thank you so much."

"Also," Wendy says, drawing back from the hug a couple of seconds later, "you don’t even have to take me. I mean. If you have someone in mind."

Lacey gives her a knowing smile. "You're the _best_ , Wendy Watson."

Wendy smiles back. Maybe she can tell the Middleman that's what she got him for Christmas, an afternoon surrounded by great and beautiful works of art, including Lacey Thornfield. 

Maybe not.

*

"Yo, Wendy Watson," Noser says. "What happened on a cold Christmas Eve?"

"You promised me Broadway was waiting for me," Wendy says. "Hey, Noser. You got a minute?"

*

Today is actually January sixth. They gave up doing gifts on Christmas Day a few years back because family stuff got in the way, and this year Lacey drove up north to spend some grudging time with Dr Barbara Thornfield, MD, PhD, giving Tyler a ride halfway so he could hop a short flight from JFK to Syracuse, and Noser spent the holidays at his comforting welcoming family home, with his happy, functional parents and sisters. (Wendy's got to admit, sometimes Noser's kind of a freak.) And even Wendy went back to her mom's place for a few days, and said things like _yeah, Mom, I'm still temping with that agency_ and _no, Mom, I'm not getting married anytime soon_ and, also, _hey, Mom, you look awesome in the new blue dress_ , because she really, really did, and Wendy never saw the nametag on the box it came in, but her mom has been talking a lot lately about that nice lady Joyce who works with her at the hospital, and how they've been hanging out and going to the movies on weekends.

So it wasn't such a bad time, but they're all back now and they haven't done their gifts yet and Lacey's dad's mom was from Russia where they do gifts on Epiphany anyway, so this is how it works. 

"Hey," Wendy says, shyly, "so I made you something." 

It's not in her usual style – she borrowed pastels and watercolours from Lacey – and for a minute she thinks he doesn't like it, or worse, is going to say something like, _what_ , or _why_ , like her mom does when faced with her paintings. She waits. 

"I can't hang it," Noser says after a minute. "I don't want to be that guy who has the picture of his own face."

"We should hang it in our apartment," Wendy says, "and you should come look at it."

So they do, and he does: spends twenty minutes looking at it, taking in the fine detail, the distant, shadowy echoes, like ventriloquist whispers. "You know who understands me, Wendy Watson?" he asks, after a while.

"No one but your woman?"

"No," Noser says, and he actually sounds kind of choked, so Wendy smiles, and hugs him.

*

So she got Tyler the guitar strings he wanted, and a handful of plecks with an arrangement of notable figures from the DCU on them, because he said he only wanted useful, practical gifts this year and money is kind of tight for both of them, but she went past Build-a-Bear in the mall and they had band-aids and red gloop and a kind of greyish poster paint stuff, and, you know, she's an artist.

"I love it," Tyler says sincerely, getting on his knees to be eye-to-eye with it sitting upright on a chair. "I think I'll call him Braaaaaaains the Erstwhile Bear." 

"How many As?"

"Seven."

"Awesome." Wendy snuggles in next to him. "Hey, what do I get my boss for Christmas-Epiphany-general-festival-of-expressing-love-through-capitalism-whatever?"

Tyler blinks. "You didn't get him anything yet?"

"Nope." Wendy sighs. "He already has everything he could possibly want, including a subscription to Reader's Digest, an Eisenhower jacket, his own private rocket launcher and a purpose in life. Everything-nado."

"A tornado made of everything?"

"You know it."

*

"Hey, Wendy Watson," Noser says, "should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?"

"We'll take a cup of kindness yet," Wendy says, "for the days of auld lang syne." And then, "Hey, Noser. You doing anything tonight?"

*

And that's it: because of course Tyler and Noser can sing, and so can Lacey, surprisingly – "All those years of private school had to be useful for something, Wendy" – and Wendy can't carry a tune in a bucket but even more surprisingly, Pip can, and he and Lacey had some sort of whispered conversation in the hallway when they came which ended with Lacey pulling a finger across her neck emphatically, so Wendy is sort of okay with letting him come along.

And they all stand together in the Jolly Fats Weehawkin reception area, and the Middleman comes through and asks, his voice oddly sweet and unguarded: "Dubbie, what is this?"

"Your Christmas present," Wendy tells him, and ignores Ida muttering something about how bongs are so difficult to wrap, and says: "Hit it, guys."

Tyler strums gently and Noser leads them into "In the Bleak Midwinter", and it's, like, sixty-five degrees outside but the Middleman's hands come together, clasped, and it's quiet and lovely and feels like home. And then they do "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Little Drummer Boy" and "O Come All Ye Faithful" and a couple of others, until finally, all the rest of them fade out and sit down it's just Lacey alone, singing the Coventry Carol, her voice high and pure as a struck bell. 

"Thank you," the Middleman says, under those last shimmering notes, and his eyes are on Lacey, but then he meets Wendy's gaze, still with that sweetness in his expression, and smiles. Wendy smiles back. 

(She also gets him an Amazon giftcard, because maybe there's like one or two Zane Grey novels he hasn't read yet, and another one for Bed, Bath and Beyond, with some notes on eco-friendly scented vegan candles, because Lacey likes them and it wouldn't kill him to learn to relax, but hey, it's a start.)

*

Very early in the morning on January seventh, the decapitated zombie on the sidewalk outside Wendy and Lacey's illegal sublet somehow gets its hands on its head and rises, both metaphorically and up the fire escape; but for Christmas Lacey got Wendy a really nice and very sharp kitchen knife, with silver decorative fretwork on the handle done to her own design, and Noser and Tyler teamed up on, among other things, a lot of rubber bullets and a garrotte, and their kitchen cupboards are inexplicably full of holy water and rock salt. By dawn warm steam is rising from the wet patch on the sidewalk, and it's going to be a beautiful day.


End file.
